Let me be your fantasy
Seminal Seventies feminist artist Margaret Harrison has always had the power to provoke. Her 1971 London show was shut down by the police, and in the chaos a piece key portraying Hugh Hefner as a Bunny Girl stolen. It was not her portrayal of women’s bodies that the authorities objected to, it seems, but men’s.
Now, Harrison returns with, I am a Fantasy, a collaboration with post-feminist artists Zoe Sinclair and Andrea Blood, aka The Girls. Drawing on the words of Marilyn Monroe the show presents Harrison’s Dead Marilyn series alongside re-workings of her well known Bunny Girl and Captain America drawings.
Harrison’s more recent works pay homage to artists from Édouard Manet to Marc Quinn, JLo is cast as Manet’s Olympia (below). The original painting portrays venus as a prostitute, and provoked scandal in 1865 Paris. We’re not sure how Jenny from the block would respond to her latest guise.
Margaret Harrison and The Girls – I am a Fantasy is at Payne Shurvell until 21st May 2011, payneshurvell.com
Words by Katie Rose
